COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

摘要

A communications system in which communications stations can transmit and receive more than one carrier frequency simultaneously. Communications channels consisting of simultaneous timeslots on different carrier frequencies are assigned to parties requesting a call depending on the particular data rate requested for the call. The system determines how many timeslots per frame the requested data rate corresponds to and then allocates the appropriate number of timeslots to the channel. Although an integer number of timeslots per frame must be allocated to the channel, the slots may otherwise be allocated in any way desired. Thus, for example, a data rate corresponding to six timeslots per frame could be provided by a channel (channel a) which consists of one slot on each of six different carriers or by a more dispersed allocation of slot 3 on carriers 1 to 4 and slot 4 on carriers 3 and 4 (channel c). A rate of three slots per frame could be provided by a channel (channel b) consisting of slot 2 on carriers 1, 2 and 3. These slot patterns repeat for successive frames.